prepare you.  You are going to a queer place."

Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather
discomfited by her apparent indifference, but, after taking
a breath, she went on. 

"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way,
and Mr. Craven's proud of it in his way--and that's
gloomy enough, too.  The house is six hundred years old
and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a hundred
rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. 
And there's pictures and fine old furniture and things
that's been there for ages, and there's a big park round
it and gardens and trees with branches trailing to the
ground--some of them." She paused and took another breath. 
"But there's nothing else," she ended suddenly. 

Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself.  It all sounded
so unlike India, and anything new rather attracted her. 
But she did not intend to look as if she were interested. 
That was one of her unhappy, disagreeable ways.  So she
sat still. 

"Well," said Mrs. Medlock.  "What do you think of it?"

"Nothing," she answered.  "I know nothing about such places."

That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh. 

"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman. 
Don't you care?"

"It doesn't matter" said Mary, "whether I care or not."

"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock. 
"It doesn't. What you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor
for I don't know, unless because it's the easiest way. 
He's not going to trouble himself about you, that's sure
and certain.  He never troubles himself about no one."

She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something
in time. 

"He's got a crooked back," she said.  "That set him wrong. 
He was a sour young man and got no good of all his money
and big place till he was married."

Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention
not to seem to care.  She had never thought of the
hunchback's being married and she was a trifle surprised. 
Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative woman
she continued with more interest.  This was one way
of passing some of the time, at any rate. 

"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked
the world over to get her a blade o' grass she wanted. 
Nobody thought she'd marry him, but she did,
and people said she married him for his money. 
But she didn't--she didn't," positively.  "When she died--"

Mary gave a little involuntary jump. 

"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. 
She had just remembered a French fairy story she had once
read called "Riquet a la Houppe." It had been about a poor
hunchback and a beautiful princess and it had made her
suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven. 

"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered.  "And it
made him queerer than ever.  He cares about nobody. 
He won't see people.  Most of the time he goes away,
and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in
the West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. 
Pitcher's an old fellow, but he took care of him when he
was a child and he knows his ways."

It sounded like something in a book and it did not make
Mary feel cheerful.  A house with a hundred rooms,
nearly all shut up and with their doors locked--a house on
the edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor was--sounded dreary. 
A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She
stared out of the window with her lips pinched together,
and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun
to pour down in gray slanting lines and splash and stream
down the window-panes. If the pretty wife had been alive
she might have made things cheerful by being something
like her own mother and by running in and out and going
to parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace."
But she was not there any more. 

"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't,"
said Mrs. Medlock.  "And you mustn't expect that there
will be people to talk to you.  You'll have to play
about and look after yourself.  You'll be told what rooms
you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. 
There's gardens enough.  But when you're in the house
don't go wandering and poking about.  Mr. Craven won't
have it."

"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little